VISALIA, Calif. -- Every now and then, over the course of eight years, Tulare City Firefighter/Paramedic Rodnie Roberts would take a bone marrow donor card out of his wallet and consider throwing it away.

Although he never threw the card away, Roberts also never thought that, after eight years, he would be called to donate, asked to go through further testing and be flown out twice, once for a physical and the second for surgery, to the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. to have bone marrow drawn from his body all within a three-month time frame.